40 Billion Song Were Shared Illegally in 2009!

The IFPI, the international equivalent of the RIAA, has put out new stats claiming that only 5 percent of all music downloads in 2008 were legal. The group estimated that 40 billion tracks were shared illegally last year, or an average of almost 30 songs for every internet user worldwide. The IFPI says it arrived at that estimate by “collating separate studies in 16 countries over a three-year period,” so it’s not really clear just how accurate it is — and of course, the higher the figure, the better, as far as the IFPI’s efforts to get governments to be their copyright police are concerned. The IFPI says that global music revenues fell by 7% last year, blaming the drop on falling CD sales, which a 25% increase in digital sales couldn’t overcome. The IFPI says piracy is the biggest challenge it faces; given the stats, the real challenge seems to be record labels’ inability to move past its legacy business model and adapt to consumers’ changing desires.